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Nutritional yeast (“nooch”) has gone mainstream, as consumers look beyond its supposed health benefits and treat it as an umami-rich seasoning.
Credit...Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
By Becky Hughes
It took only 50 years, but nutritional yeast has finally gone mainstream.
“Nooch over everything” reads one sticker available for purchase online, the text appearing on a yellow canister not unlike the ones used by Bragg nutritional yeast. On another site, a “Nooch God” T-shirt shows the same bottle between two prayer hands, yellow flakes showering out from the opening.
With a cheeky nickname and a new audience of experimental chefs and home cooks, nutritional yeast — long associated with hard-core vegans — has found a broader audience.
Nielsen reported that sales of nutritional yeast in the United States increased 20 percent between February 2019 and February 2020. In that time, market greens tossed in a nutritional yeast vinaigrette appeared on the lunch menu at Ssam Bar in the East Village of Manhattan. At the Los Angeles cafe Sqirl, a Caesar salad with nutritional yeast croutons was served alongside a rib-eye for two on the decidedly nonvegan Valentine’s Day menu. Omnivorous recipe databases (like NYT Cooking) are using nutritional yeast as a seasoning in creamy pastas and a topping for popcorn.
The process of making it is almost as unsexy as the name — the fungus Saccharomyces cerevisiae, commonly known as Brewer’s yeast, is grown on cane and beet molasses for nutritional yeast. Once fermented, the yeast is harvested, washed, pasteurized and dried. The last two steps deactivate the yeast’s leavening ability, its main difference from active dry yeast or Brewer’s yeast. The resulting flakes are mustard-yellow, their shape and texture often likened to that of fish food.
Some companies that carry the product advertise its high protein content and B-complex vitamins, especially B12. That was the main selling point when Bob’s Red Mill started selling nutritional yeast in the 1970s. As Sarah House, a representative for that company explained, a vegan diet “can lack sufficient B-complex vitamins, especially B12,” and a sprinkle of nutritional yeast is an easy way to supplement.
Marion Nestle, a food studies and nutrition professor at New York University, remains unconvinced by any health claims. “Nutritional yeast don’t make vitamin B12, so that has to be added to meet that particular requirement,” she said.
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